


Savon de la Guerre

by SansSoucis



Series: Kissing Knuckles [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 1944, Angst, Bruises, D-Day, Dark, Death, England pov, England's dark thoughts, FrUK, France and England's difficult relationship, Historical, Liberation of Paris, Love/Hate, M/M, Mentions of America and Canada, Mentions of historical events and people, Nudity, Repeated mentions of Germany, Scars, Slight Hurt/Comfort, Soldier!England, Violence, WWII, War, World War II, dark themes, showering, the horrors of war, ukfr - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-15 02:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14150049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SansSoucis/pseuds/SansSoucis
Summary: "What happened to you?"England can almost sense how desperately the question wants to spill over France’s lips, can almost taste the cautious concern, hesitant pity, on his tongue, and God, he truly hates the taste. The last thing he wants is to be pitied by the country he’s supposed to be liberating, the man who looks more dead than some of the corpses England has seen sprawled in muddy ditches all over the countryside.France with his cracked lips and bony ankles and empty expressions and the way he crawls about the house like he wants to morph into the wallpaper truly has no right to inflict such humiliation upon him, and England greatly considers telling him so, but the sight of France roughly scrubbing his own body with quick stiff movements drenched in icy cold self-hatred as if trying to erase the ghost of spiteful hands from his skin makes him reconsider.England has nothing to celebrate during the Liberation of Paris, instead he finds himself in France's shower trying to wash off the horrors of the war. France joins him.





	Savon de la Guerre

The shower bursts to life with a loud screech. England shivers, quickly closing the flowery curtain and stepping underneath the stream. It’s only a trickle of water, but he’s glad that it’s at least warm.

He’s made do with less, and if it wasn’t for France’s insistence, ( _“I will not let you anywhere near my bed if you smell like a swine!”)_ he probably would’ve worn his uniform to bed.

It’s become less an outfit and more of a second skin, and it faintly reminds him of the harnesses he used to wear whenever he charged onto the battlefield, when fighting was something you did out of honour and pride, when you took off your harness after the battle and went back to living. Harness battered, body undamaged. England had fantasised countless of times about taking his uniform off, about slipping the burden of war off of his shoulders and being able to _breathe_ again.

He’s naked now, skin flushing angrily wherever the hot water touches it, but he still feels trapped, damaged, vulnerable. The horrors of war have seeped into his skin, chilling his bones to the core. Filth’s gathering at the rim of the shower drain between his pale toes. England grabs the washcloth and the soap, scrubs himself raw, leaving burning patches of red all over his arms and chest.

The curtain rustles, and England shivers as he is exposed to streams of cold air. “Oi, Frog! Close the damn curtain, will you?” He snaps heatedly, curling his arms around himself.

“Mind if I get in first?” France asks dryly, and England steps aside without another word. In different times he would’ve pushed France away, made some more furious attempts to cover his own stocky body, but most of England’s sense of dignity has flown out the window ever since he drunkenly raged and cried and seethed in a phone booth at Oxford Street back in ‘40, spitting at Churchill _what do you mean Gamelin said there’s no strategic reserve, we’re not losing him, we’re not losing France, DO you understand!?_  

Besides, France is not looking so pretty himself, England thinks gloomily, studying the gaunt curve of France’s hips as he shifts around, trying to accommodate the both of them into the small space. He frowns at the way a trembling hand tries to cover France’s private parts as he brushes past England to reach for the soap, because since when has France ever minded being naked in front of England, of _anybody_ for that matter?  

The little bumps of Frances spine have deepened and harshened and hollowed out, and even from behind England can see how his ribs stick out. There’s a fading bruise on his shoulder to match the ones on his hips and England doesn’t know if it’s just his white hot-raging mind that’s making things up, but he thinks it awfully resembles a bite mark.

France looks like he’d shatter into bits and pieces as soon as anyone’d lay a hand on him. And as much as England hates his enemy being powerful, he hates him being vulnerable more. It awakens a possessive streak in him -only he can break France- and he has to think of the way Germany’s soldiers bleed all over Europe in order to calm himself.

He feels France’s gaze weighing down on him, blue eyes wandering over the rosy patches of skin gruesomely knotted together on the narrow planes of his chest. England unwittingly recalls how he wailed like an infant while the ground around him darkened with copper stains and the shadows of thousands of soldiers fell over him. Thinks of the high pitched whistles of bullets in his ears, and how the sound was either silenced by a dull thud of ground or a _sob/gasp/whimper/scream,_ sea water tinged pink and the taste of sweetened iron pooling bitterly in his mouth while he desperately clawed at the blackened earth, grasping at the last straws of life because he could never surrender-

_What happened to you?_

England can almost sense how desperately the question wants to spill over France’s lips, can almost taste the cautious concern, hesitant pity, on his tongue, and _God_ , he truly hates the taste. The last thing he wants is to be pitied by the country he’s supposed to be liberating, the man who looks more dead than some of the corpses England has seen sprawled in muddy ditches all over the countryside.

France with his cracked lips and bony ankles and empty expressions and the way he crawls about the house like he wants to morph into the wallpaper truly has no right to inflict such humiliation upon him, and England greatly considers telling him so, but the sight of France roughly scrubbing his own body with quick stiff movements drenched in icy cold self-hatred as if trying to erase the ghost of spiteful hands from his skin makes him reconsider.

So England watches France instead, watches him rub the abused milky white bar of soap -England had been frantically trying to scratch the German brand off- over the washcloth, watches him whimper softly at the uncomfortable feeling of lukewarm water against the raw traces of the rough fabric on his flesh, watches water pour over his long aristocratic nose, his furrowed brows, hollow cheekbones, the tender curve of his lips. 

And it’s only then that England looks at the ten crude lavender fingerprints scattered all around France’s sharp hipbones again and for a few seconds the edges of his vision fade into blurry pulsing white while his stomach twists into a tight knot and he feels like throwing up all over the bathroom floor.

“They call me a soldiers’ whore down in the streets.” France says tonelessly as he senses England eyeing Germany’s souvenir, eyes empty and fixated on his feet. “They say I betrayed my own country. Funny, isn’t it?”

He cringes under England’s angered gaze, ducks his head so heavy strands of golden hair turned wet honey brown hide most of his face. Pathetic, vulnerable. England slams his fist into the unforgiving cold tiles of the shower wall, inwardly howling at the sharp sting of pain that travels from his wrist up his lower arm.

“Goddamnit France, don’t act as if this is a joke! Look at you, what he _did_ to you!” England snarls in disgust, jabbing his sore finger accusingly at the broken country before him. Tense silence follows, the drops of water clinging to England’s back suddenly an icy cold.

France pales as much as his sickeningly white skin allows him to. “You think _I_ wanted this to happen!?” He says shrilly, the piercing sound bouncing off the bathroom wall and hurting England’s ears.

“ _Why_ did you not come with me at Dunkirk, then!? Why did you stop fighting!?” England screeches, the primal sound being ripped from his sore throat before he can catch himself.

He knows it’s unfair, so _horribly_ unfair to treat France this way after the atrocities he’s gone through, but he feels as if he is going to choke on the terrible feeling of impotence that has been tormenting him ever since he met a shadow of what used to be his dearest enemy on the Place de La Revolution a few hours ago, drunk and half dead and clinging onto unknown American soldiers’ necks as if his life depended on their affection. France has been reduced to a mere fraction of his former flamboyant self, and it bothers England more than he’ll ever admit. He needs France to live, to fight, to _be_ , because if he is truly honest to himself, the thought of France is what kept him going ever since he crawled onto Normandy’s beaches and all around him young men died face down to be forgotten on the shores.

France laughs scathingly, and it’s truly a horrific sound, crude and sharp and high-pitched and nothing like his usual charming snort. “ _Excusez-moi!?_ Are you mad about me not fleeing to England like the _coward_ you wanted me to be? Are you angry that I chose to face the danger head-on, instead of becoming your little _bitch?_ ” His accent and his  anger mangle the words until they’re barely recognisable as English, his screaming voice seemingly too large for his broken body.

England feels his heart shatter into hundreds of pieces, because France was never his bitch, because to him France was his ally, his on-and-off lover, perhaps even a _friend_..

 “That’s not at all what I meant!” He protests weakly, but his words are lost in the storm of poisonous words that France bombards on him, filling up the little shower cabin, suffocating him against the damp tiled walls.

 “Or perhaps you think I deserved this for not going into exile, for choosing to fight alongside my people? Perhaps I just got what was coming to me, after all, I could’ve seen it coming. What kind of country would refuse the opportunity to rape a _schlampe_ like me into surrend-“

“I COULD’VE PROTECTED YOU!” England roars back, if only to make France quit his delusional rambling. “Damn it, France! We could’ve fought him together, as allies!” His voice cracks pitifully. “Instead you left me to fight him on my own..” He swallows back angry tears, sees France’s nails dig painfully into the bar of soap as he tries to fight his own. “I needed you by my side, Francis..”

France’s face softens. _“Angleterre..”_

“I could’ve prevented this from happening. If only I’d made sure you could put your trust in me when I proposed, if I had been kinder, more understanding, more reliable- _maybe_ , maybe you would’ve dared to put your faith in me. I would’ve fought to the death to defend you, France. And I should have.” He rakes his hand through his hair in frustration, his nails stinging at his scalp. “ _God_ , I should have. Why did you leave me!?”

“It was never your job to protect me Angleterre..” France mumbles softly, voice an apologetic caress, a pathetic attempt to soothe England’s seething mind and trembling upper lip, his fists that lie heavily against the sides of his thighs, restlessly clenching und unclenching at the sense of impotence that washes over him, the burning need to strike some sense back into France but being withheld by the fear that France might fall apart if he does so. England’s face aches with the force he clenches his jaw, faint stings of pain traveling up the roots of his teeth with each pulsing heartbeat.

“I’ll make sure he dies the most horrible of deaths.” England isn’t sure to whom he makes that promise, to the small flicker of life in France’s eyes or to himself, to the millions of soldiers rotting away beneath the ground, to the orphans or the lost Jews, or to his boys, dear Alfred and sweet Matthew, dragged into a war that shouldn’t be theirs, to the ever resilient Churchill and to Hitler, perhaps even to Germany himself.

He’s imagined killing Germany in gruesome ways hundreds of times, ever since his feet began to rot in the despicable trenches of the Great War, to slit his throat, to watch the life leave the eyes of the murderous infant nation, to bathe in all his wasted Aryan blood. But now that there are Americans marching through Paris, now that France’s warm body is inches removed from his, now that there is the slightest possibility of the war coming to an end, England doesn’t know if he’ll be able to do it, if he wouldn’t finally collapse under the weight of the war as soon as he had a gun pointed at Germany’s head, if the ghosts of hundreds of faceless German soldiers -he’d only _hoped_ pulling the trigger on Ludwig’s children hurt the bastard more than it hurt him- would not finally catch up to him and tear the broken remains of his sanity apart, their undead hands squeezing the air out of his lungs, leaving him dying next to Germany amongst the ruins of Berlin..

“England.”

France stands small and slim before him, all parchment-skin stretched over sharp-edged limbs, body almost wishing to curl in on itself, yet in his eyes glints something unnervingly cunning, awfully knowing, all-seeing, making England want to drown himself in the lukewarm drizzles of water rattling down on the metal of the shower drain.

“ _Merci_. Thank you.” France says simply, and then his arms are wound tight around England’s waist, his breath hot against England’s chest. And England catches him as if he’ll never let go, fingers slippery with soap running over every part of France within his reach, burying his face in dripping hair, taking in the scent of tobacco and freshly baked bread and the tiniest hint of lavender, the scent of France, _his_ France.

The cheers and songs of the French and the Americans celebrating outside drift into the tiny bathroom and over France’s shoulder England eyes the fallen bar of German soldiers’ soap melting into nothingness between their feet. For the first time in weeks, he feels like smiling.

“Arthur..” France gasps against his lips, and England’s heart tugs at the use of his human name. “I’m so glad that you’re here.”

And as France’ caresses every single one of England’s bullet wounds, softly murmuring ‘ _un, deux, trois’_ along the way and sealing each touch with a gentle kiss, England closes his eyes, leans back against the freezing shower wall and allows himself to heal.

**Author's Note:**

> Liberation of Paris: The Liberation of Paris was a military action that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944.
> 
> Most of England’s sense of dignity had flown out the window ever since he drunkenly raged and cried and seethed in a phone booth at Oxford Street back in ‘40, spitting at Churchill what do you mean Gamelin said there’s no strategic reserve, we’re not losing him, we’re not losing France, DO you understand!? - According to Britsh Prime MInister Winston Churchill, who was in Paris on the 16th of May 1940 during the Battle of France to boost the low morale of French leaders, when he asked where the stratetic reserve was, French General Gamelin replied :"There is none." According to Wikipedia, Churchill has later described this as the single most shocking moment in his life.
> 
> “They call me a soldiers’ whore down in the streets.” - French women who were suspected of having had relationships with German soldiers were publicly humiliated and had their heads shaven as a punishment.
> 
> “Why did you not come with me at Dunkirk, then!? Why did you stop fighting!?” - The Dunkirk evacuation, code-named Operation Dynamo was the evacuation of Allied soldiers during World War II from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The operation commenced after large numbers of Belgian, British, and French troops were cut off and surrounded by German troops around the mid-point of the six-week long Battle of France.
> 
> the thought of France is what kept him going ever since he crawled onto Normandy’s beaches and all around him young men died face down to be forgotten on the shores. - The Normandy landings (D-Day) were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. 
> 
> Schlampe - "Whore/Slut" in German 
> 
> If only I’d made sure you could put your trust in me when I proposed, if I had been kinder, more understanding, more reliable- maybe, maybe you would’ve dared to put your faith in me. - Refers to the Franco-British Union, an idea of Winston Churchill and Charles the Gaulle to merge France and Britain together into one country to fight against Germany. The plan never got carried out because some French leaders thought Britain was going to steal France's colonies. One French leader is reported to have said that becoming a Nazi province was more preferable than becoming one with England. The French Philippe Pétain compared the Franco-British union to a 'fusion with a corpse'


End file.
